What the IAEA Closure of Their Iran Investigations Really Meant

Perhaps we should be starting with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Director General Yukiya Amano statements which pertained to the IAEA’s verification of Iranian nuclear research and development including answers to previous questionable activities and current activities including possible secretive research into weapons production.

 

 

 

 

We realize that you played that ten, fifteen, thirty times and still he said almost nothing other than we wash our hands of the Iran issue and give them a clean bill of health and for more read our nice, dry and hard to read report, if he said that much. So, you ask hoping we have read the report and you will not need to read the report, all sixteen pages, what did it all say? Well, we could answer off the top of our heads, as probably all of you could, it will say Iran is clean now though they may not have been completely honest in the past; we believe them completely now and there is almost nothing to worry about unless they are lying; but we don’t think they are lying, like we would admit we did even if we were sure they were lying, but you will have to trust that we trusted them. Oh, you really want us to go through the report and take out the pertinent parts, FINE! We’ll do so! Trust there is more article after the summary which can wait until you have the time and nothing more interesting to do. Scroll down and we’ll put a nice picture separating the final writings there to flag you down, so look for the flags.

 

The following were the actual quotes which may or may not clarify their findings and positions, but we figured that was their intentions.

 

“From 2002 onwards, the Agency became increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile. Reports by the Director General identified outstanding issues related to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme and the actions required of Iran to resolve these.”
The information indicated that Iran had carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The information also indicated that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured programme, and that some activities may still have been ongoing.
 
There was mention that their information came from a wide number of sources, another way of saying not to blame them, but just in case there was anything brilliant in the report they said that some came from their own efforts, and then another disclaimer which has to be quoted, “from a number of Member States, including Iran itself.” From here on it is quotes unless in {} or obvious commentary by us. And it will be obvious.
“Between January 2012 and May 2013, the Agency and Iran held ten rounds of talks in Vienna and Tehran, aimed at reaching agreement on a ‘structured approach’…no concrete results were achieved during those talks. …”
 
Framework for Cooperation
 
On 11 November 2013, the Agency and Iran signed a ‘Joint Statement on a Framework for Cooperation.’
{We could now quote a whole load of legalese describing their agreement and all the trust and measures and validations and verifications and our eyes started crossing and glazing over.}
 
Security Council Resolution 2231
 
On 20 July 2015, the Security Council adopted resolution 2231 (2015), in which, inter alia, it reaffirmed that Iran “shall cooperate fully as the IAEA requests to be able to resolve all outstanding issues, as identified in IAEA reports.”
 
Implementation of the Road-map
 
More Gobbled-y-Goop
 
Methodology
 
More Gobbled-y-Goop
 
Area Assessments
 
Gobbled-y-Goop but here it is in case it might be important, like FoR ReAL!
 
As previously reported, the Agency has focused its analysis of Iran’s nuclear programme on an acquisition path involving high enriched uranium (HEU). Based on indicators observed by the Agency in connection with Iran’s nuclear activities, the Agency’s work has concentrated on an analysis pertinent to the development of an HEU implosion device.
 
Past Resolutions of the Board of Governors and the Security Council
 
The United Nations Security Council has affirmed that the steps required by the Board of Governors in its resolutions are binding on Iran. Between 2006 and 2010, six Security Council resolutions… In particular, in its resolution of June 2010…concerns about the possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme… all sites, equipment, persons and documents requested by the Agency.
 
Following the issuance of… essential for Iran and the Agency to intensify their dialogue… providing clarifications regarding those issues.
Further to the Director General’s report of August 2012, the Board of Governors, in its resolution of September 2012… restore international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.
 

Efforts to address the Agency’s concerns since November 2011

 
Structured Approach
 
Between January 2012 and May 2013, the Agency and Iran held ten rounds of talks in Vienna and Tehran… a new approach aimed at ensuring the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme should be developed.
 
Framework for Cooperation
 
On 11 November 2013, the Agency and Iran signed a ‘Joint Statement on a Framework for Cooperation’… proceed with such activities in a step by step manner.
 
Within the Framework for Cooperation… practical measures and technical discussions had been held with the Agency concerning the other two.
On 14 July 2015, the Director General and the Vice-President of Iran and President of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran… strengthen their cooperation and dialogue aimed at the resolution, by the end of 2015, of all past and present outstanding issues that had not already been resolved by the Agency and Iran. The actions agreed under the Road-map are listed in Annex I. {Great, now we need to read Annex I}
Security Council Resolution 2231
 
On 20 July 2015, the Security Council adopted resolution 2231 (2015), in which, inter alia, it reaffirmed that Iran “shall cooperate fully as the IAEA requests to be able to resolve all outstanding issues, as identified in IAEA reports.”
 
Implementation of the Road-map
 
In the Road-map, the Agency and Iran agreed to aim to…the Agency had assessed to be “overall, credible”, as well as information received…which further contributed to the analysis contained in that Annex.
 
As agreed in the Road-map, on 15 August 2015, Iran provided to the Agency its explanations in writing and related documents, on past and present outstanding issues. On 8 September 2015, the Agency submitted questions to Iran on ambiguities regarding the information provided…as a basis for seeking clarification; the Agency’s review of information available…any implications regarding the indicators; and the Agency’s questions.
To remove the ambiguities regarding the information…particular locations of interest to the Agency…15 October 2015.
 
On 20 September 2015, the Director General and Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Safeguards visited the particular location at the Parchin site of interest to the Agency.
 
All the activities in the Road-map were implemented in accordance with the agreed schedule and, on 24 November 2015, the Agency and Iran held a “wrap up technical meeting” in Vienna.
 
Methodology
 
In November 2011, the Agency provided its “analysis of the information available to it in the context of relevant indicators of the existence or development of processes associated with nuclear-related activities, including weaponization.” Since November 2011, the Agency has acquired more information through activities under the Framework for cooperation, including the Road-map and the JPA, through the Agency’s own efforts, and from Member States, including Iran. As additional information has become available to the Agency, the Agency has been able to refine its analysis of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.
 
In order to perform the final assessment, the Agency has analyzed all the information available to it in relation to each of the 12 areas, as set out in the 2011 Annex. The Agency has also used the same information to gain an understanding of the whole picture through consideration of the nature, amount and coherence of the information over time.
 
Area Assessments
 
As previously reported…concentrated on an analysis pertinent to the development of an HEU implosion device.
 
Programme management structure
 
{Iran was using multiple agencies and departments and other subterfuges to conceal their real purposes which we recognized sort of; spread over four tedious paragraphs}
 
Procurement activities
 
As previously reported, Iran has stated that the AEOI encountered difficulties with procurement… {poor babies} …Ministry of Defence Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), thereby disguising the final user.
 
The Agency also had indications of instances of procurements and attempted procurements of items with relevance, inter alia, to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The Agency does not have information regarding any such procurement attempts after 2007.
 
During discussions with the Agency…Iran confirmed its earlier statements that…made a procurement enquiry about a specific high speed camera, the camera had been for a conventional purpose and, ultimately, Iran had not purchased it. Iran also reiterated its earlier denial that a named company had attempted to acquire high-speed switches.
 
The Agency has not received additional information on this topic since the 2011 Annex.
 
Nuclear material acquisition
 
{Technical garbles which is too rich to summarize as the claims and counters are simply beyond belief and other beyond credulity and the rest far too technical}
 
Nuclear components for an explosive device
 
{More technical garbles}
 
Detonator development
 
{More technical garbles}
 
Initiation of high explosives and associated experiments
 
{More technical garbles which only one of us understands}
 
Hydrodynamic experiments
 
{More technical garbles}
 
Modelling and calculations
 
{More technical garbles}
 
Neutron initiator
 
{Technical garbles but you have to love discussions about nuclear physics}
 
Conducting a test
 
{Technical garbles and as it said, it’s just a test, a physics test}
 
Integration into a missile delivery vehicle
 
{Technical garbles all about miniaturization and the rest is nuts and bolts}
 
Fuzing, arming and firing system
 
{Technical garbles and no there is nothing about detonation-cord}
 
Overall Assessment
 
This overall assessment results from the analysis of all the information available to the Agency in relation to each of the 12 areas, as set out in the 2011 Annex.
 
{More technical garbles}
 
Summary
 
Political and technical Gobbled-y-Goop

 

 

 

Let’s Run Them Up Any Flag Pole
and See Who Salutes Them Smartly
Showing Your Love of Freedom
and Feel Free to Add Your Flag
if the Moment Grabs You as You
See This Pair of the Flags for Freedom

 

 

Much of the reports have centered on that the IAEA has found no indications of diversions or of extraordinary mining in or near known uranium mines and that there probably has been no developmental steps taken beyond feasibility and assuring of having acquired the technical ability to produce nuclear weaponry of the nature and suitability the Iranians desired, whatever all that really means. Anyone who expected an arm of the United Nations run largely by third world officials and nuclear physicists whose highest desire was to travel around the world either inspecting third world nuclear sites or attempting to inspect nuclear weapons programs of nations who would just as soon kill as look upon their own people, so you can guess what the worth of an IAEA inspector is worth. The IAEA is also heavily political and not exactly all that enamored with the Western States or Israel and likely more guided by the membership of the General Assembly than the five permanent members in the Security Council. Further, if the people working for the average large city are fairly incompetent and state officials make the city workers look like geniuses, while Federal employees are legendary for their lack of ability, of course all of these have exceptions such as any government worker reading BTC, so you can imagine what any world employees can be in the competence department. The one thing which can be said is the United Nations workers for all of their agencies have some of the most difficult and dangerous jobs when working out in the world as they are often not exactly appreciated by the governments of the nations where they are assigned and often face threats of death simply for attempting to serve others unselfishly and many probably get abuses which they do not deserve. Imagine attempting to distribute aid and food and other sustenance to the people under a dictator who would just as soon see them dead and wants to steal the food supplies and distribute it to his security forces and army which keep him in power and then it becomes no surprise that often the aid is simply unloaded from the ship or aircraft and then left for the dictator to distribute as he desires because it is not worth being murdered in a futile effort. There are reasons that the United States sends troops with their aid shipments. It is true that the United States military should not be used for meals on wheels but sometimes they may be necessary for those performing the meals on wheels distribution to be allowed to actually move the aid. The world is a far from perfect place, something many of us forget or would rather not face as long as it does not affect us and may we continue to live where life is not endangered just because we hold an opinion which others are willing to kill us over.

 

Going to another set of thoughts, something we do here often and what else can be said about an IAEA report we all knew would be a whitewash of the Iranian nuclear program anyways and that is what we likely got. The hope now is that we never reap the ill rewards which are possible should Iran produce and use nuclear weapons or that ever there should come a nuclear war which encompasses a number of nuclear armed nations and a general exchange of nuclear weapons causes a runaway ecological disaster having planetary effects which could only result in consequences too horrid to imagine. Such an event would make most of those post apocalypse movies appear optimistic with the likely exception of “On the Beach” depicted. That was presumably what the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was designed to prevent and the reason for the IAEA was originally enacted and initiated, but that was when the United Nations member nations were restricted.

 

That was before the fateful decision to allow all nations to enter the United Nations as all nations were equal and should have an equal vote in such a body and the General Assembly was opened to every nation and dictator who desired equal footing with every other nation. Fortunately the original nations who were tasked with fashioning the United Nations kept veto power in the Security Council for the five nuclear powers of the time, or their closest allies thus the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France were given veto power in the Security Council, the only body which could order the use of military force. That too will soon be surrendered as the world will decide there is nothing special about those five nations and everybody has to be equal. Once the veto for the permanent members has been erased then the seats on the Security Council will be expanded and the fixed memberships will either be expanded beyond reason or abolished making all nations equal in all things and then the United Nations will devolve into chaos and soon will disintegrate under its own equality as the more equal numbers of dictators vote the democracies out of existence under threat of war, of course, after they have demanded and received nuclear technology including weaponization because all nations are of equal value so they should have equal military power and technologies. We will learn that merit has value but it will probably be learned too late. Equality only works between nations who agree on the sanctity of life, have similar value systems and have a free and open society; otherwise you end up with almost two hundred nations who agree on nothing except that there are well over one hundred who wish to drag the wealth from the most wealthy nations even if it destroys the geese with the golden eggs because they want all the golden eggs for themselves in the name of equality. Such a United Nations will be the igniter for a terrible conflagration. Let us pray that the nations with dignity of the human spirit to protect realize their special place and realize it is not rubbing elbows in equality in the putrid bog where leaders disregard or enslave their populations as in such a swamp all sink into the teeming cauldron of inhumanity and such can only work to the detriment of the world as there is enough heartlessness in the world that without freedom loving nations mutually protecting those values all human value will be lost. That is the number one reason for the free world to realize their precious gift and the value of going to whatever lengths required to protect the freedoms from those who would denigrate all human life trampling underfoot the freedoms which by the grace of all that is holy came from the values which have flourished in the Western World and a limited set of other nations who must remain free at all costs. Freedom once lost is almost never regained and especially if it dissolves from the entire planet in a swarming over the free world of a demographic explosion initially necessitated due to a demographic implosion largely fueled by a loss of faith in Hashem.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Afraid Things May be Worse Than We’ve Reported

 

Most of the time we have referenced to stories which harbor some severe implications for society and our world going forward. Still, things have the potential to take turns far worse than we have been willing to admit. The nuclear deal with Iran was one prime instance where our reports have avoided taking any extremist lines and tried to remain with the hopes that the actual agreement would prove to have some semblance of sanity. We really wished to report that all is not lost and that despite the obvious reports of gloom and doom still left a single ray of sunshine. We had hoped that the IAEA would at the very least be able to inspect any nuclear site within six weeks of requesting access. We realize that this sounds like wishing on a star and seeing if it gets us very far but the IAEA has proven to be thorough and competent with the ability to find that one part per million which the cleansing of the site missed. That probably was very wishful thinking but that is still preferable to screaming before every last morsel of honest assessment had shown there is no hope. Well, the other shoe has dropped, to utilize an old phrase, and that is the fact that there are parts to this deal that were reached apparently and were negotiated outside of the actual negotiations which included Secretary of State and the leaders of the North Korean talks from the United States Department of State along with the committee members from Russia, China, France, Great Britain and Germany on one side of the table and the Iranians on the opposite side (it was a very big table with one side apparently stretching on forever and the Iranian side manned by at most ten to twelve negotiators). There have been reports and a confirmation from, of all people, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and current United States National Security Advisor Susan Rice, the proud Administration water carrier and front person for the Benghazi lie blaming a little seen YouTube video, when she brought witness to the Senate hearings on the Iran Nuclear Deal that there is another entire additional set of rules and agreements reached between undisclosed people from Iran and undisclosed representatives of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and people from the White House but apparently not Secretary of State John Kerry and the rest of the merry band of United States negotiators, reached and agreed upon to be included sight unseen in the Nuclear Deal. This additional set of protocols and other undisclosed items which is presumably to be provided to the Senate Investigating Committee in closed door high security setting (we just can hardly contain ourselves waiting for the unofficial leaks concerning this testimony and the denials from the White House and top Republican Senate water carriers) explaining the details of this agreement within the agreement hammered out between the White House and undisclosed representatives of President Obama (we suspect that includes the former National Security Advisor to the President and the current United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power) and the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and undisclosed Iranian representatives without the participation or knowledge of the other five members of the P5+1; which would be Russia, China, France, Germany and Great Britain, and slipped into the agreement under super-secret conditions and without the knowledge of all the P5+1 negotiators including Secretary of State Kerry. This was given further confirmation by Secretary of State Kerry during his testimony where he admitted that there was such a set of additional protocols and other determinations and agreements which were to be included and were really a separate deal made by the White House along with representatives of the IAEA and Iran that Secretary Kerry had been briefed by some undisclosed person who had allegedly actually read this additional agreement in full but which Secretary Kerry had not read despite agreeing for it to be included in the agreement he was bringing to the Congress and that he had no access to as the actual agreement is in the hands of the IAEA who have thus far not only neglected to show Secretary Kerry the terms but apparently have considered Secretary Kerry too much of a risk to allow him access now or potentially even after the Senate has been briefed, and potentially some members permitted to read what will be sworn is the entirety of the additional side agreement, and the Senate, the American people and the rest of the world whom this might be source of unfathomable harm are to trust that the IAEA and President Obama and his Administration team who put this ancillary binding agreement together apparently in order to clarify and stipulate to limitations and other necessary protocols such that with these additional surrenders by the Administration of the ability for the world to be granted the slightest glimpse of the Iranian nuclear program despite what the actual agreement worked out mostly publically before the world, this secretly negotiated agreement supersedes the actual agreement where stipulated but remaining undisclosed to the United States negotiators and the rest of the P5+1 negotiators. If I have this right we are to trust President Obama that this further agreement which will remain a secret shared only with the appropriate Presidential Administration unnamed representatives, unnamed Iranian representatives and unnamed representatives of the IAEA who will also be the holders of the actual agreement and only permitting those deemed qualified to peruse the super-secret agreement to see the actual, or at least the purported actual as how is one to know for sure, and then include it unseen into the agreement which the United Nations Security Council had already cemented all these terms into a Chapter Seven binding agreement. Wow, we are surely glad that was all settled up so nice and clean and without a single drop of blood spilled thus far and for how much longer only the super-secret ancillary agreement and the few privileged to view the finished terms, namely those who fashioned the wording which may or may not include President Obama. It would be interesting to inquire of the President whether even he knows exactly what is in this part of the agreement to which he presumably will sign his name guaranteeing the United States will comply with an additional set of protocols and what-not without having complete foreknowledge. As a show on the Science Channel here asks in its title, “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”

 

We sure do feel better knowing that the negotiations have all been a dog and pony show put on for the mutual entertainment of the mainstream media, the media pundits, bloggers, editorialists and the world’s public at large while another whole framework and deal has been hammered out between White House unnamed entities and their Iranian counterparts, also nameless, which we suspect had been agreed upon back within weeks if not days or merely hours and which deal included parts we likely have already seen play out and that was namely the public show would continue postponing any deal until the Iranians had sufficient time to produce the dozen nuclear devices which Administration leaks have claimed exist and were almost enriched past the twenty percent level which would have made the resulting uranium attain HEU (highly enriched uranium often abbreviation used to denote weapons grade) and fashionable into at the least a dozen warheads depending on the complexity of the weapons and whether they were to be the initiator for a thermonuclear warhead, a design it is feared may have ‘accidentally’ given to the Iranians before the year 2000 in an attempt to mislead their developers but which failed as the individual attempting to pass off designs with built-in flaws which would have sent the developing scientists down a divergent path but the agent made the necessary correction when he feared the receiving scientist had detected one of the flaws and he realized that coming clean was the only way he could save himself, so the Iranians, North Koreans and the Chinese ended up with one advanced thermonuclear warhead design which took the United States nearly a decade to design and figure out all the required parameters and detonation sequencing. This little gem was loosed during the early George W. Bush Presidency within the initial three months when somebody came across the files on this case and leaked the information before it was buttoned down and sent down the information drain which leads to the black box which has no key (place for highly secret deals and information including especially damaging or humiliating evidence of complete and total incompetence, this gem could not have been executed by George W. Bush as he had not been in office anywhere near long enough to set up such a scheme which would take years to develop). The question that requires being asked will remain notable largely due to the absence of being expressed. At some point it would be nice to find out if the incessant postponing of the final date when the parties agreed upon terms which appeared to have been almost the exact same terms which had been bandied about from the outset of the talks, terms that both sides had known would be the final agreement point largely because there had been private talks between President Obama and representatives of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei back before and immediately after President Obama won a second term. One can only suspect that this was the outset for the actual agreement which will not be the piece of paper being signed with as little pomp and ceremony as possible as all the parties are aware of the worthlessness of the agreement they worked to achieve as the real agreement was hammered out in private by the President’s team and the Iranian representatives, the rest was a show put on as a part of the original agreement and was used to grant Iran time to complete their enrichment of most of their uranium which had been purified to twenty percent. There was absolutely no way that the Iranians were going to give up on the entirety of their uranium which necessitated one or at most two runs through cascades of centrifuges they already had built and tested in preparations for enriching these exact stores. Expecting the Iranians to neutralize all of their moderately enriched uranium would be just as insane as believing that Bashir al-Assad gave up all his chemical weapons stores which was evidenced by his chlorine bombs and the nerve agent found and used by Syrian rebels for which somehow al-Assad was blamed after-all if he had turned everything over the rebels would never have come across some stores of them.

 

After all these delays and the fact that there was an actual deal already agreed upon between the United States and Iran which was partly evidenced when President Obama ordered the lifting of a number of sanctions and released what will be a drop in the bucket compared to the amounts of monies to be released to the Iranians within the next sixty to seventy days; the signing will be done, in secret if necessary, as it is a done deal already written in stone by the United Nations Security Council, the sole entity within the United Nations which can issue binding agreement as we have now witnessed. All has been gathered together and placed in a neat arrangement in order to conceal the super-secret terms concealed in the center of the agreement such that none of it is visible to the public and the promised most transparent administration in history once again had operated in the shadows while misleading the world and the American people, that three percent paying attention. The Administration gave all a brief glance at a carefully constructed view which left the actual deal slipped into the center pages of the agreement where it can remain concealed without informing the allies or the United States negotiating team or the American people. We can assume quite a lot from small comments here and a nervous chortle to a question there all of which depicts a very careful surrender of the American right to have a presence in the Middle East or even to advise and express preferences. The main part of the agreement is not completely about the uranium enriched path to a bomb or even a dozen bombs, it was and always will be for the remaining months, days, hours or even minutes and seconds which time will be wasted or alterations are already in progress to destroy the United States military and its ability to extend its reach beyond the American shores as that is the main unfinished business of the Obama administration. With the American surrender before the granted Iranian might the sole remaining item on the agenda of President Obama is to force Israel to join the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) and order and carry out on the destruction of any Israeli nuclear warheads or bombs. Should President Obama fail on his quest to denuclearize Israel then Iran will not be the sole nuclear power in the Middle East and thus will remain opposed and Israel may actually continue to exist for the time being. The real question is how the peacemakers are going to prevent the entirety of MENA nations (Middle East and Northern Africa) who desire and have an actual government from going nuclear and starting the most dread of nuclear arms race, a race which arms some of the world’s most diametrically opposed foes and an area of nations which divide up in so many different members uniting officially and also unofficially that there would be no possible way to stand within such a world and prevent every potential nuclear standoffs from India and Pakistan, to Yemen with Iran and Saudi Arabia, to Algeria and Libya, to Morocco and Mauritania and to anybody or to almost everybody against Israel. A map of MENA nations is almost up to date and is only missing the Sudan, and as the Sudan was split after years of tribal and religious violence, South Sudan; and some go so far as to include Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Djibouti, Eretria, and Somalia.

 

A map of MENA nations is almost up to date and is only missing the Sudan, and as the Sudan was split after years of tribal and religious violence, South Sudan; and some go so far as to include Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Djibouti, Eretria, and Somalia.

 

 

 

By the time everything about the super-secret deal are known it will both be way too late to undo or significantly mitigate the results of the intentional feckless and intentional perfidy being committed by President Obama. Were his actions taken by any President before 1980 and perhaps starting a decade later they would have been impeached and tried for treason all at the same time. This irresponsible diluting to the point of being meaningless all treaties against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and especially in an area as volatile as the Middle East and Africa one may as well throw in South America which we feel assured will follow suit just not to be left out as well as this spreading throughout all of Africa. Additionally, does anybody honestly believe for one second that if Boko Haram had some dirty bombs or even worse actual nuclear warheads strapped down inside large SUVs they wouldn’t use them against Christian neighborhoods, schools etcetera in their crazed desire to denude all of Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and other nearby Christian areas continuing until they reached the shark-infested waters off South Africa? Does anybody believe that Hamas would not, as a part of their reconstruction of Gaza, not place a nuclear device inside a cement truck with an armored cab (driver’s seat and area of operations) and drive it through the Gaza barrier (which is only a chain link fence monitored by remote camera receiving stations) and head north and get as far into central Tel Aviv or near the petroleum processing plants and detonate the device? The answer to either question, if one is being honest, now there is a concept, is of course they would and then some. How long would Kurdish people last if their adversaries had nuclear weapons, or the Druze, Yazidi (who were close to wiped out with conventional weapons and barbarity, or a list of other peoples and the terrorist lurking within or just over the border. Is it at all possible that Syrian Dictator Bashir al-Assad would not have used tactical nuclear weapons on his own people in place of the barrel bombs he did use? The miracle is that we have not blown all quasi-intelligent life off the face of this planet and with us the rest of the large animals thus leaving future archeologists to figure out what it was that caused human-kind to cease to exist in the early parts of the twenty-first century. They will be confused as to the source of the problem which caused mankind to fight nearly to the last man woman and child. Whatever is the next creature which becomes intelligent and is humankind’s replacement will have some difficult questions to ask or to answer unless we as a people take control of our destiny. If it were but that easy for the people to take control of their destiny but unfortunately the vast majority of us are consumed by what the Roman rulers called bread and circuses. The Romans do not get the credit they deserve as they truly knew what would keep the people docile and oddly it was being given their necessary doses of violence every so often. They timed their entertainment such that they were not denied matches going to their finality but as gladiators were expensively trained they could not very well be killed off in a casual manner. All too often men who were convicted of vile crimes were given the opportunity to change their fate in the arena against other convicts if they were lucky, against a trained gladiator, either way the convicts chances were quite poor as the best the only one permitted what one might consider their freedom was the right to fight for their freedom or to more likely die trying. The games have changed but the political target is the same, distractions, distractions and more distractions along with industrialized farming which produces an increased crop which feeds the people and due to subsidies paid to those farming conglomerates as well as the other farmers with the intent of keeping the public well fed, some might claim overfed. Bread and circuses is still the magic formula just as the Romans quieted their public with ample water, ample food, which is subsidized if necessary, and ample entertainment with cable television, movie theaters and sport stadiums where rather than feed the players to the beasts we have player almost as powerful on both sides as they all contest over the winner getting the pigskin for their victory.

 

But we fear a greater contest is on the horizon no matter where one looks and once again the Europeans are ill prepared for this contest and the United States military is also in a stand down size and equipment. Additionally, thanks to the efforts of arms dealers and politically correct rather than honestly correct have squandered their positions by allowing every immigrant to remain and thus you gave your enemy a path within your gates and they are in the heart of every civilization and they are becoming restless as we have not accommodated their every demand and surrendered before them and before their deities. While our enemies were setting up bases from which to operate we were running around like Don Quixote tilting at windmills and calling them great dragons or demons. While they were making plans and scheming about the day when they will unleash the dogs of war while we worried about under-inflated pigskins and ruination of one we could have called a hero though we will be needing real heroes really soon and in numbers unknown. This may be the longest and most drawn out war as it has been being waged already for over fourteen-hundred years through times of peril and times where the conflict seemed in remission but alas it was only catching its breath until the time came and presented itself vulnerabilities in the technologically slaved society. How easy have you made your defeat as your entire ability can be wiped clean within a few seconds as the power grid goes dark. No internet, no GPS, no television, no microwave and soon the morning after the worst hits home, no coffee or tea, easier and to the point, no caffeine. Simply put no electricity and almost every item we depend upon stops including water and sewage treatment and removal. There have been reports and evidence emerging which indicates that the Western vulnerability to an EMP attack is unthinkable. Should a massive EMP weapon, nuclear or purely electronic, and the transformers be knocked out or only three quarters of them destroyed across the United States and Canada it would take as long as six to twelve years before power would be restored to the dwindling number of survivors as prediction actually say worst case scenario and over nine out of every ten people would perish as would the vast majority of crops would not be able to replant the next year as the genetically modified crops are sterile and with the labs shuttered there would be no new seed for the new year. This is just another case of our technology working against our very survival. Almost all of these difficulties could be prevented for ten-billion dollars. That is the price of hardening the entire electrical grid for most of North America covering all of the continental United States, Canada and even much of Mexico and Alaska, of course. With the electricity protected and on we will also have water, food, medicines, fertilizer, hospitals, medicines and almost life as usual. There would still require a checkup on the transformers and other parts of the electric grid. Europe is facing an identical problem set and requires the same though potentially higher priced solutions. After any attempt to take down the electrical grid fails we need to ready for terror assaults on what are deemed soft targets such as those very same transformers, especially the larger versions which make the power ready for home and business usage. All of the potential attacks are intended to tie up resources and force our leadership, both civilian and military, to take resources away from defense of borders and thus have them out of position should an assault come such as a second strike attempt except this time the missiles are carrying high yield warheads of nuclear weapons if they have been produced and high explosive if that is the best available. Any way we look at the Iran deal, especially knowing that there was some kind of alternate deal made through backdoor channels while we were watching what we thought were the negotiations to reach an actual deal and not that the actual deal had already been reached and the above board negotiations were part of the bread and circuses while whatever the real objective was reached under the table and behind our backs. If the deal made in view was as bad as could be, exactly how much did the United States give away when we could not see the machinations. If the backdoor deal was many degrees worse than the upfront deal, as we suspect; we had best be ready for almost anything to break loose but not until the United States or Israel, whichever is denoted for the initial strike, so it will likely be just before or soon after inauguration day as the new government has not even found the shelters or the bathrooms yet, let alone plan a war strategy. In Israel it would be timed for between governments but after the election while there really is no government as the coalition has yet to form. Those are the weakest points in parliamentary governance and federated republic governance, may we surprise ourselves as we may be counting on exactly that to come out of it in one piece.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Russia Iran Mutual Assistance Agreement

 

What do Russia and Iran have in common? If your answer was sanctions, congratulations. The two have been under sanctions from the western nations. So, you might think that two nations under sanctions would both be suffering cash shortages and thus would both be too financially strapped to assist each other in any way. But there are ways nations can assist each other that do not require dollars, Euros, Pounds Sterling or any other normative tenders. But then the Iranians, or maybe for this we might call them by their original name, Persians and the Russians are returning to a more familiar means from history, trade and bartering. The Russians have something the Iranians have desired and made agreements which were prevented by combined actions by the United States and Israel, their advanced S-300 antiaircraft radar and missile systems. But what could the Iranians have that the Russians could use? Oddly enough, despite Russia being an oil exporter they have made an arrangement where the Iranians initially will pay for these advanced systems by shipping oil to the Russians and change their style of payment to some form of cash, not necessarily petro-dollars but rather some alternate currency which may be the initial first step to establishing an alternative international currency to compete with the dollar which Iran and Russia have been pressing for largely seeking to enjoin China in this effort which they believe might make such a currency internationally acceptable. In the meantime the oil provided as payment to the Russians will simply become a part of their own petroleum reserves as oil is an extremely fungible commodity which can be sold without fearing the buyer will be running laboratory tests to trace its nation of origin.

 

The Russians are moving on delivering these advanced antiaircraft radar and missile systems which are capable of targeting multiple aircraft including cruise missile and possibly some forms of ballistic missiles (not IBCM but ballistic mid-range missiles which do not leave the atmosphere and reenter the atmosphere) as quickly as the systems can be assembled, tested and configured. The Russians are showing little signs of putting this deal on hold and waiting for the sanctions to be officially removed and are not concerned whether the sanctions are going to be immediately removed upon the signing of a nuclear agreement as the Iranian Framework Agreement Farsi translation states, or gradually over a period of time after Iran meets certain markers as President Obama’s copy of the Framework Agreement claims. This not concerning the Iranians is more than readily believable and with the weakness shown by President Obama with his message requested to be given Putin by former Russian President Medvedev about his greater ability to be more flexible after the 2014 elections, like now, there will be no respect for anything President Obama might think forcing Putin to delay this deal more than about ten seconds. The Russians are actually apparently anxious to provide the Iranians with their advanced S-300, or perhaps the improved S-400, complete mobile anti-aircraft systems, almost as anxious as the Iranians are to receive them and put them around their nuclear development sites, even those sites which they will have switched over to spinning a mixture of gasses including a base noble gas and a cross-section of other gasses so that the cascaded centrifuges will retain their calibration and be immediately returned to uranium enrichment as soon as restrictions are retired, or whenever the Iranians decide to shoot for a nuclear weapon and deny the IAEA inspections and ignoring all restrictions of any agreement reached in the nuclear negotiations.

 

While the threat to use the military option should Iran break the deal reached presumably between now and June 30th and has repeatedly been brought to the world’s, and especially the media’s, collective attention by President Obama, the one truism existing is that the military option will remain there on the table for as long as President Obama is in office. The problem is that should the Russian deal with the Iranians come to fruition, and we doubt any threats from the west, either the Europeans or President Obama, are likely between the Russian energy stranglehold over the Europeans and President Obama’s greater flexibility, exercised like a man without a spine, would be believed by President Putin who would likely make a threatening move and all would wilt before his shirtless form. As far as the Iranians are concerned, and has been proven by the fiasco which have passed as negotiations, they really do not care what the rest of the world thinks and they know they have the upper hand as the Europeans have the military preparedness of a preschool compared to the Iranian missiles which can easily reach virtually all of Europe and the Americans have President Obama whose effeminateness precludes his taking any strong military attack is nil. Once the Russians have provided the Iranians with sufficient S-300 systems they will have become relatively immune from most military airstrike be they from jet fighter-bombers or cruise missiles. The S-300 systems radar station can track at least a dozen separate aircraft (up to seventy-two are trackable in its most advanced systems) and target six missiles in flight (up to thirty-six are targetable in its most advanced systems). A number of missiles are matched with a central radar system and both the missiles and radar system are mounted on trucks making the entire systems mobile, thus making them less easily targeted and easily relocated to guard targets considered most vulnerable at any given time. The S-300 systems, assuming the deal will provide Iran with as many systems as they desire, will make any air strikes by the Israelis close to impossible and at the least excessively costly in the cost of aircraft, and more importantly, pilots either lost or captured. Such a system would require stealth aircraft to avoid the high resolution wide-array radars. This would make Israeli Air Force excessively vulnerable and their initial targets would necessarily need to be the radar systems followed by the antiaircraft missiles themselves. Daring such attacks while not having the stealth aircraft for the mission would still present challenges which would tax any pilots beyond imagination. As far as a strike force from the United States, it would likely take their every F-22 Raptor escorting every B-2 Stealth Bomber with special radar seeking missiles equipped on the Raptors and for many of the buried and reinforced nuclear sites, especially the Fordow site, would require bunker-buster munitions with some requiring the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) which weighs 30,000 pounds (14,000 kg), with a length of 20.5 feet (6.2 m) and a circumference of 31.5 inches (0.80 m) and originally required a modification of the B-2 Stealth Bomber in order to carry this unfathomably strange and huge munition. Such an attack will not be even slightly possible before the next Presidential Inauguration before it should even be considered remotely possible, and then it will be dependent on who is the new President the people of the United States elect. The truth be told, this deal will be the final nail removed from the coffin to allow the nuclear mummy to rise from the crypt and begin the nightmarish specter of a nuclear armed theocratic realm with apocalyptic visions and aspirations to rise and spread the fears of nuclear annihilation across the globe and also release the spreading specters of fears spread to the rest of the Islamic nations of the Middle East and Northern Africa starting any number of nations, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait and beyond take this as their starting whistle to developing their own nuclear weapons to balance against any Iranian threats. A world with such a spread of nuclear arms will have become one threat removed from a miscalculation spawning a reaction which very easily could tilt the balance into crazy and soon might follow the raining of missiles carrying the end of life as we know it as the clouds rise in a column then spreading their bulbous sides outward making a large caldron of swirling hot gasses spreading outward poisoning a large swath of Earth and changing our outlook into the future, if there is to be a future, if there is going to be a future at all.

 

Beyond the Cusp